


Nick's Valentine

by Raccoonfg



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: F/M, Love, Valentine's Day, Valentine's card, card
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-24 21:39:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9788144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raccoonfg/pseuds/Raccoonfg
Summary: Some of the best gifts are homemade and come from the heart. After all, it's the thought that counts. Right?





	

**Author's Note:**

> The following short story was written for /trash/'s Thematic Thursday event; Valentine's Day (02/16/17)

“It’s the thought that counts, right?”

Nick stared down at the card held between his trembling paws and took a deep breath. Steadying his grip, he cautiously judged the piece of paper for a good long while before sharply exhaling with a quick nod.

“Right,” he answered himself, confident in his resolve.

It wasn’t something expensive, or fancy, or on anyone’s Amoozon wish-list; Nick knew that.

But it was unique.

One of a kind.

From the heart.

“Right?” Nick asked again, scrunching his face as he held up the homemade card, second guessing his confidence.

He could have waltzed into any card shop and gotten some schmaltzy, overpriced card that a thousand other schmucks were also giving to someone for Valentine’s Day.

He could have thrown away his money on some impersonal, mass produced, holiday cash grab churned out by a soulless company.

But this was more than anything store-bought. It was a personal expression of his feelings for her; a way of reaching out after spending so much time getting to know her and learning what she meant to him, deep down.

He looked at the red construction paper token of his affections and thought about how much time he spent, how much paper he went through, just to get the heart shape perfectly. All the little touches and flares; every bit of it was done while thinking of her.

And lastly was the card’s header, which Nick smiled at as he reread the words he had written.

‘Judy Hopps, will you be my Valentine?’

Nick huffed once more, re-inflating his faith. “Right.”

Hiding the card behind his back, Nick stepped out of the precinct’s locker room in search for his partner, knowing that it was now or never.

Weaving through the throngs of other officers that littered the hallway, he twisted and tilted his head every which way to spot the little grey bunny. And fortunately for him, it wasn’t long before he found her, currently heading into the front lobby.

“H-hey Carrots!” Nick called out to her, halting his partner’s pace.

First cocking an ear in his direction, Judy turned around with a welcome smile spread across her face. Her violet eyes were as bright and beautiful as the day they first met in the ice cream parlor; no matter how many times he saw them shine, his heart always melted. “Nick!”

His legs were like lead, stubbornly refusing to move any closer, leaving him feeling foolish as he practically lumbered towards her. Memories of the police academy’s mud field obstacle course came to mind as something far easier by comparison.

“Uh, listen, J-Judy…”

That faith? That confidence? That resolve?

All crumbling with each step.

“What’s up Nick?” Judy asked in her usual perky tone, helpfully walking towards Nick to meet him halfway. “Got something behind your back?”

Nick gulped, realizing there really was no turning back now; she knew he was up to something, and even if he chickened out and lied to her, she’d figure it out in the end. She was, after all, amazingly smart.

And pretty.

And funny.

And--

“Nick?” Judy looked up at him, her face innocently showing off her piqued curiosity. “What is it?”

“W-well,” Nick could feel his heart thumping, rising up his chest and choking at his windpipe, making it hard to speak, “you know what t-today is, r-right?”

“You mean Tuesday?”

“Haha!” Nick’s sudden laugh was barked out so awkwardly that almost everyone in earshot gave him a weird look; and considering how many predators there were on the force, ‘earshot’ was a generous range.

Sweating under the collar, Nick moved his lips nervously and found himself at a loss for what to do with his tongue, which just flicked and flopped uselessly in his mouth. Catching the growing look of concern on Judy’s face, he brought his arms around from his back, jittering uncontrollably as he started to present her with his Valentine card.

“With the, you know, holiday… I, ah-- G-got you… That is, if you would…”

Judy’s eyes lowered down to the red paper heart Nick held out for her and gently took it from his paws. Her face was still like an undisturbed lake as she quietly studied the Valentine.

In the excruciating pause between them, Nick’s pulse grew more and more insistent. His apprehensive survey of her face was so unflinching and tense that his eyes started to sting from the lack of blinking. Sweat left his paw pads moist and clammy.

And then just as it felt like his nerves would have torn his body to shreds, Nick noticed the small sprouting of a smile on Judy’s lips. Watching it slowly spread across her face, his heart finally began to calm down to a manageable beat and his body ceased its rattling vibration.

She liked it. She really liked it.

But just as Nick thought he could finally relax, his heart dropped with the realization that Judy’s mouth wasn’t just stopping at a warm, loving smile.

No, her lips continued on, curling upwards and tightly pressed together. Her cheeks bunched up around the corners of her mouth, while her brow wrinkled and arched into a peak. The twisted look on her face developed further and further into a mockery of the rabbit Nick knew, until a derisive snort escaped from her tiny button nose.

The snort became a snicker.

And as Judy’s chest and shoulders began to shake, the snicker became a cruel laugh.

“The heck is this Nick?” Judy asked between fits of cackling. “What are you, ten?!”

Nick stood there in mortified silence as Judy laughed in his face while everyone in the lobby stared at them.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

“Did you actually use construction paper? Jeez, Slick, way to break out the safety scissors and make a girl feel special.”

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go at all.

It was from the heart.

“Hey. Hey!” Judy tugged at the pant-leg of a nearby lion, urging him over to look at the cheaply made card. “Get a load of this. Right under where he asked if I wanted to be his Valentine, he actually wrote ‘yes’ and ‘no’, like I’m supposed to circle my answer.”

“Seriously Wilde?” The lion shot Nick a disdainful look, shaking his head. “This isn’t grade school.”

Nick squirmed with embarrassment as others came over to gawk at him and his card. The discovery of everything going so pear-shaped shocked him to the core; he just didn’t see it coming.

It was a personal expression of his feelings.

“Oh, em, goodness.” The tittering voice of Clawhauser came from behind Nick as the heavyset cheetah loomed over him with the same mocking smirk as Judy’s. “Was that written with a glitter pen? And they say that I’M an embarrassment to the force…”

Nick’s heart plunged deeper and deeper inside himself, dragging his body down with it as he shrank under the weight of everyone muttering and laughing about his foolishness.

But it was the thought that counted.

Right?

“Alright, alright,” Bogo’s voice boomed over the crowd and the sea of sniggering mammals parted to let him through. “Now what seems to be the commotion?”

“Check it out, Chief,” Judy waved the valentine up at Bogo; a malicious grin on her face. “Wilde actually thought I’d like this crap, could you believe it?”

What Nick couldn’t believe was the level of betrayal Judy had dealt him.

He though they were partners.

Friends.

Something more.

Instead she gleefully shoved the now rumpled card into Bogo’s hoof and sadistically bounced by the chief’s side as he inspected it. Those who hadn’t gotten a peek already tried to catch a glimpse from around the buffalo’s broad shoulders, while the rest resumed their unkind murmurs.

“P-please Chief,” Nick stuttered, fruitlessly reaching up to accept the card back, “Y-you don’t have t-to--”

“What is this, Wilde?” The chief grimly shook his head in disgust. “You decorated it with macaroni?” Before Nick could respond, the chief began crumbling and balling up the card into a worthless wad; his expression becoming increasingly offended with each twist and press of the paper. “With white glue?!”

Nick watched in abject humiliation as his own boss literally crushed his heart in front of the entire precinct. Shattered pieces of pink painted pasta fell to the floor, followed by a gentle snowfall of loose glitter. His outreached paw slowly dropped back to his side lifelessly as Bogo finished off his act of destruction by ripping the paper to shreds with a single motion, scattering it through the air as callous confetti.

“Crossing guard duty, Wilde,” Bogo bellowed angrily. “For a whole year!”

The entire lobby erupted into a cacophony of savage jeering; bloodthirsty and mirthless in their scornful laughter. Nick tried to back away, to slink off into some safe place that he could avoid their judgement, but the pitiless figures closed around him; towering over the fox and enveloping him in the shadow of their contempt.

It felt like everything was spinning around him, disorienting Nick and leaving him confused and terrified about how to deal with all of this. And lunging out of the darkness was a pair of cruel violet eyes that belonged to a set of paws that roughly grasped Nick by his neck-tie, pulling him close to a twisted buck-toothed mouth that laughed louder than them all in short, unrelenting barks of false delight, splattering his face in stinging spittle with every ‘hah’.

He didn’t want this.

He never wanted this.

He just wanted to be loved.

To be loved.

By her.

 

* * *

 

Nick uncontrollably jerked forward in his bed as the muscles of his body reacted to the sudden jolt of consciousness. Only the gradual realization that he was laying there alone in his dark room settled his nerves, easing his racing heart.

As his eyes adjusted to the lack of light, Nick’s fleeting memories of his nightmare casually sifted away, leaving only the most extreme remembrances of his imagined humiliation.

With the shapes and colors of the room finally coming into view for him, Nick glanced over at his nightstand where a homemade, red construction paper heart laid by his alarm clock. He reached out a paw to pick it up, and without more than a moment’s hesitation he tossed it into a nearby trash bin before going back to sleep.

He’ll just pick up some flowers and a box of chocolates on the way to work.


End file.
